Before the Fall
by CodaEvermore
Summary: Every story has a beginning. A look into the childhood of the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.
1. Chapter 1

A lonely melody echoed throughout the first floor flat. It wound through wallpapered corridors and through peeling doors, until it reached its source. A young boy, no more than eleven or twelve, playing a violin. Staring out the window. Observing.

All his brother could see, from where he sat upright in a worn armchair, was a mess of dark, curly hair, silhouetted against the twilight glare. The violin – the varnished surface dull, the strings having been replaced innumerable times - gave little resistance in the hands of its master. It ached with a melancholy sound, filling the entire room with an empty sadness.

Mycroft sighed and reclined in the chair, reacquainting himself with the day's newspaper. "Do shut that thing up, Sherlock."

At once, the music halted, screeching to an untimely stop. The boy still held the violin in that same position; still looked out the window, coldly absorbed in something beyond the glass.

"The third one this week," he stated blankly. Mycroft glanced up from the article.

"What?"

"The lipstick smudge on his collar. Obviously tried to wipe it off, but hasn't succeeded. Different colour from yesterday's. Hard to tell the exact brand from this distance." He readied the instrument again, recommenced his tune.

His brother, with a disapproving frown, started reading again, but it was clear that such politics were not on his mind. A few moments passed. "I do wish you'd stop doing that."

The reflection in the glass smirked. It was not the expression of a child. "What, the violin?"

He continued to read. "The observing."

The boy half-turned towards his brother, for the first time removing his gaze from the window. "You do it too."

"Yes, but I don't say what I see at inappropriate times. Like at breakfast." He watched his brother, for a moment. The posture. The deft, practiced fingers. The eyes, trained on a single figure in the street below, taking in every detail that presented itself. It could be a skill – he knew it could, he saw it too. But with Sherlock, it seemed to have turned into a curse; a curse that had overshadowed this whole family. "You know how it upsets Mummy."

An ear-wrenching screech wailed through the air, cutting off the sweet melody in a single, dangerous stroke. Sherlock Holmes turned to face his brother, and his face was no longer the placid, expressionless sight it had been moments before.

"_I_ upset her, Mycroft? What did _I_ do? I only stated what was perfectly obvious!" His furious eyes attempted to meet his brother's but his older sibling simply averted his gaze to the finance section of The Times.

"All I'm saying," he explained dryly, flipping over a page, "is that what is obvious to us isn't always to everybody else. And you could be a little more tactful next time," he added, as his brother scowled and returned to the window, fingers curled tightly around the polished handle of his instrument.

"It wasn't me," the boy said, beneath barely disguised fury, "that upset her. It was that man. That one out there, who's so casually strutting about like he owns the place!" The bow quivered in his hand as he pointed it accusingly at the figure below.

With a rustle, Mycroft lowered his paper, revealing a stern glare. He didn't have to look to the street to know who his brother was talking about. The signs were all there, displayed across his angered face, as easy to read as lipstick on a collar.

"Sherlock, he said, firmly, "that man is our father."

There was no reply; not from the figure at the window. He continued to watch. The look he gave the man was no longer angry or emotional, it was blank.

With a sigh, Mycroft folded his paper and strolled over to join him. "Going to your mind palace?"

"Shut up, Mycroft."

"So tell me." He was the one now looking out, at the man in the coat and scarf down below. "What _do_ you see?"

"Why bother? You know everything. You've seen everything I know already and you've only been stood here a moment." But still he glared through the glass.

Mycroft sighed, a broke his gaze to look around the meagre room. His eyes alighted on a skull on the mantelpiece. "Sometimes it helps to say it to someone. We all know how you love to show off."

The change was noticeable in a matter of seconds. Suddenly his brother was upright, eager, alive. He paced slowly in front of the windowsill, but his speech was erratic.

"Well, there's the obvious. Lipstick. It's on his collar, in close proximity to his neck, so we know _that _wasn't an accident. And of course he's tried to wipe it off, which has failed completely and utterly, because the coat's black and the lipstick's red – slightly more pink than yesterday, obviously a less flashy woman, rather than that one he had yesterday; his hair's brushed, his shoes are almost clean, he's wearing that scarf again, and gloves; gloves are probably to hide that ring, he probably doesn't want to take it off after he made the mistake of losing it the other day, the scarf he's probably using to hide his face, his collar's turned up as well, obviously trying to be inconspicuous in the most conspicuous way possible, he's wearing that _ridiculous_ hat again, which he's probably taken from _her_ house, whoever 'her' is today. As soon as he comes in he's going to take that hat off and hide it in his coat pocket, knowing mother obviously won't check, since she's been avoiding him since he came in drunk the other night; he's taken an umbrella, but it wasn't supposed to rain until five tonight, obviously knew he wasn't going to be back until late. Mud on the sole of his shoe, but there's no rain in this region, let alone mud – could be from before, but look at those shoes, he's cleaned them recently, so it'd make no sense for him to leave the mud on. So he's met another woman today, third one this week, out of town, is not trying to appear inconspicuous outside our house and his probably waiting for quarter of an hour until mother's out the house to go to the bingo. Am I right?" he asked, snapping out of his speech.

"Mostly correct, but I believe that you missed the way his umbrella is still wet."

The two stood a moment longer, staring out at the city that they had known so well. A drop of rain landed on the window pane, and then another.

"Five o'clock," said Mycroft.

There was a silence. "Sherlock," said Mycroft, gently.

"What?" Sherlock seemed to break out of a sort of trance, drawing his attention away from the continual droplets spattering down from the sky.

"It…" usually so eloquent with words, Mycroft suddenly found it difficult to know what to say. "Sherlock, it wasn't her fault."

He glanced over at his brother, but there was no expression. He wondered if there ever would be.

"She didn't realise. It… just came as a shock. When you told her. She didn't mean those things she said. She-"

"She is my mother." A simple statement. It was so typical of Sherlock. So straightforward.

The previous weekend. Breakfast time. It had been raining. If a passer-by had been observing the house from the outside, everything would have seemed perfectly normal. Until you heard the shouts from inside. An argument. And then the front door banged open, and a man walked out of the house. In the doorway, a woman stood, crying.

"I know, Sherlock." There wasn't a lot else to say.

Slowly, almost unconsciously, Sherlock reached once again for the instrument at his side. Sensing that the conversation was at an end, Mycroft returned to his seat and picked up the paper.

The first few bars of a familiar melody played. Then there was a pause. "They all… _love_ so much, don't they?"

"Unfortunately, yes." He flipped a page, almost absent-mindedly.

At the window, a figure played the violin.


	2. Chapter 2 - Umbrella

"Mother?"

The words seemed lonely in the empty room. A dining room, it had been, though dining seemed too fine a word to use now. The room seemed so large, so lonely. Not like it had been only weeks before.

A woman sat at the table. She didn't look at the young boy who entered the room, who stood in the doorway and pleaded; not with words, but with something far deeper, more buried. Her head was held in her hands; skin pale, hair dark and tangled, deeps circles under her eyes.

He looked out of the one clear eye that remained uncovered. A wooden cutlass trailed limply on the floor beside him, held loosely in one hand.

He took a tentative step nearer, the sword making a grating sound as wood ran across wood. There was a long, infinite pause, and the entire world seemed to be waiting, watching. Neither body moved.

"Mother?" He whispered, almost in fear. There was no reply. "Mother, I'm a pirate. Look."

The echo of music could still be heard throughout the house. It always seemed to be there; those same lonely notes, the same melancholy tune. Often it was because the boy stood at the window, the same window in the same room, looking at the same weather. But it could still be heard, even when the violin stood in its own lonely corner, untouched.

The casual passer-by, upon hearing this information, would suggest that the frequent playing of such mournful tunes was what gave the house its characteristic melancholy. But those who frequented the house would all agree that the opposite was the case. The song was almost the soundtrack, the song each heart played, had played constantly for the last few weeks; had been hinted at before, for years previous.

Those notes seemed to echo in each person's mind.

He stepped closer, looking closely for some reaction; any reaction, any movement, any acknowledgement of his existence. Any kind of emotion, positive or negative, to prove that he was _there_ to her.

Her eyes were glassy, focused on some point in the scratched and worn table that had held host to so many conversations. The plates were stacked in the sink, unclean and forgotten. And the music was still there.

"I'm a pirate, Mother," He repeated. "It's Halloween. We're going to a party, mother. We…"

Urgent footsteps could be heard in some distant corridor. They seemed to be coming closer, ever closer, with some speed. Reaching them.

He reached out. "Mother-"

Behind him, a figure appeared in the doorway. In a hurry the figure swept into the room, placing a firm hand on the younger boy's shoulder and pulling him roughly away. "Sherlock, come on."

The younger boy struggled uselessly. Panicked crescendos filled the air. "Mycroft, get o-"

"She doesn't want to speak to you!"

"Mother!" He cried, being forced into the empty corridor with a severe push. "Mother! Mother!"

Nothing. There was no goodbye, no protest. Not even a look of relief.

The brothers often wondered, particularly on the lonely nights when the violin played and the papers rustled, what the worst part of possessing such a talent was. For Sherlock, in that moment before the door closed and shielded him from the mournful tableau, the answer was clear. It was the being able to read what your loved one, the one dearest to your heart, thought; and not being able to do anything to change it, or act upon it.

Her head was in her hands. Wasn't that obvious? Even those without such observational talent could tell that that meant she was in distress. But the true terror came in those little details; the shiny ring that was still on her finger; her hair, unbrushed and matted; her red lipstick, still smudged slightly across one corner of her mouth. There were all there, for him to read. But able to do nothing, nothing but stand by and watch as she collapsed before him.

He faced the door, staring steadfastly at etches ingrained in its surface. _He_ stared down the hall; down, past the wallpapered walls, to the end; to the windowed door with the warped glass, through which a streetlight shone harshly.

Neither spoke for a moment. Mycroft paced slowly, with careful silent footsteps. "We shouldn't go, Sherlock. Not tonight."

The boy continued to stare at the wood, observing each memory relieved in its surface. The angry etches, from where he had stood that day those weeks ago. The dents around the frame, from where the door had been slammed innumerable times. Every detail, plain to see, connected to some other distant painful memory.

He laughed bitterly. "Halloween is only once a year, Mycroft."

Despite the tense atmosphere, the other laughed. "You really _do_ want to go, don't you. Always knew you wanted to be a pirate."

He younger's cheeks reddened. "Do shut up, Mycroft."

He only laughed in reply. "Mark my words; you'll be making your own profession."

He snorted. "Real jobs are so dull."

The two lapsed into silence, the hallway becoming filled with the awkwardness that was a constant looming presence. The idle words held its tides back; but sooner or later the barriers no longer held, flooding the house with that same absent feeling.

The brotherly bond. Was that all that existed in the end? Even when that bond was a thread, did it still count for something? Even when invisible?

Never trust anything you couldn't observe with your own eyes.

Step. Step. Stop. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

"Stop that, Mycroft!" The younger yelled in a sudden burst, the echoes bouncing off the walls. He rested his head upon the wood panel, no longer afraid that it might move from beneath him. Not when there was nobody to come out.

The irregular metal tapping stopped. Fiddling uncomfortably, Mycroft looked down to the umbrella held in his fingers. The five o' clock umbrella. "What's the time, Sherlock?"

The other snorted in reply. "Come on. You _know_ what time it is-"

"Just tell me."

"There's a _clock_, Mycroft-"

"Just say."

There was a pause. Long. Silence ensued, apart from the rhythmic ticking on the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway. Seconds passed. A melancholy countdown, or a still-running stopwatch.

"7:05pm," He muttered, eventually. "The clock always makes a slight clunk at every 5 minutes, and the clock rang the hour quite recently, so-" He broke off, for no reason in particular.

_He won't even turn around. Not even to look at the clock. You could say it was convenience, but I know better. He thinks it was a test; and he's right, as usual. But not of the kind he thought._

He paused, the older next to the younger, and reached out an uneasy hand. It hovered uncomfortably over his shoulder, a foreigner in uncommon territory, before coming to rest on the clumsily striped fabric. There was no reaction, no expression from the younger. "Come on. Let's go."

The boy half-turned towards him, reluctant to abandon the security of the door but enticed by this new prospect. "We're going?"

The other nodded, before audibly expressing his answer. "Yes. We are." He started towards the door, swinging the umbrella in hand.

The younger followed him, at a comfortable distance. "Mycroft, you're not dressed up."

"This _is _my outfit. I'm going as a government agent."

A familiar snort. "Thought you would have gone as a cake."

"Shut up, Sherlock."

This was as cosy as things ever got. Perhaps it was as comfortable as either of them ever could be. Perhaps when stranded in a sea of awkwardness, an ocean between one type of thought and another, the only comfort is in togetherness. Even – _especially _– when the two rocks of the family are the other side of that sea; and they, too, are broken.

Neither mentioned those rocks as they left. There was no goodbye.

The cold warmth of the hall gave way to the biting chill of autumn London as the boys stepped out into the street. The season of colour had no impact on the paved street, a constant grey, save for a half-hearted sapling in an island of soil. Sword and umbrella grazed the ground as they moved; one strolling, one slouching, towards the corner and beyond.

The man in the window watched his umbrella with tired eyes.

Almost reluctantly, yet never taking his eyes off that solitary object, the man picked up the instrument at his feet. Hair dripping, he drew the bow, shuddering slightly, across the strings; a low, mournful note echoed around the papered room.

For the second time that day, a lonely melody echoed throughout the first floor flat.


	3. Chapter 3 - Halloween

"At least look like you're enjoying yourself, Sherlock."

Parties are, in many ways, a minute representation of society. People move about, like particles in a river, constantly attracted and repelled against each other. They drift, in the currents of conversation. Some particles are more attracted than others.

On the edge of the room, highlighted in constantly shifting colours, the two brothers sat. Their eyes wandered; avoiding eye contact, yet always observant. There was no off switch.

So around them the particles danced. Each particle a person; with their own identity, their own history clear on their faces. They intermingled, taking part in the great game that was called Socialising.

The cutlass swung, methodically, next to his legs. Sherlock watched it with a meditative gaze.

The elder sighed, standing up with a heave. "I'm going to the buffet." Umbrella in hand, he strode away to the other side of the room; the younger watched his movements silently. The sword beat a methodical rhythm against his foot.

The song changed to some generic pop song; guitar, acoustic; 4/4 time, violin crescendos at the end of the second verse. Some got up, some sat down. Witches and vampires danced an improbable dance amongst fairies and cowboys. There were those with their friends and those with their family and those whose parents had no idea that they were here tonight; and for many of them they never _would_ realise, such was the quality of the plan. Everybody was with somebody. Even if they weren't they never seemed alone.

For _them_ it was different. Even together, they were apart. They were alone.

People were boring. Instead, he examined the cracks in the floor. Wherever you went, there was always the floor to look at. If you were outside there wouldn't be walls, and ceilings were largely uninteresting, but floors were certain to hold all manner of details. They held the tracks of the people who had passed; ever interesting, ever unique, you could stare at them for hours at a time. He would, sometimes, on absent days. And times like this.

The warm presence of a person taking a seat next to him. Brown hair appearing out of the preferical vision. He observed without turning his head. Details flooded in through the visual stream.

_Twelve years of age, more or less, but short. Costume homemade. Came with sibling; sister, most likely, but no friends, obvious by the way he looks about, but not in an excited way; he's looking for comfort, he's lost, he knows he's going to get told off – fear? Spilled something on costume, appears to be coke due to distinctive colour, impossible to tell type. Costume itself appears to be of some sort of rodent – squirrel, perhaps, but of odd colour, misshapen tail, perhaps lost, accounts for diminutive expression, he is looking at me._

Sherlock turned and stared at the boy. The boy stared back.

A moment. "Diet or normal?"

He looked confused. They always did. Of course he knew why, but he never could quite understand. "What?"

He sighed. "Never mind."

The other boy's feet beat a rhythmic tattoo on the floor, the heels of his trainers scuffing the floorboards. Every beat met with that of the music; key of F major, a suddenly erratic, staccato tune with which the boy's soles only half managed to keep up. It was almost absently that his own feet matched to fill in those beats that the other boy missed.

They watched their feet together.

It was midway through the last chorus that the squirrel-creature stopped, giggling somewhat into the fabric of his hood, which disguised half his face. Sherlock stopped and watched him, half-curiously. "Is there something wrong?" Not that he would have missed anything obvious.

The boy stopped, suddenly self-conscious, and glanced at him. It lasted only a moment, before his eyes darted back to the floor. "Oh. Um, nothing. Nothing. Don't worry, just… you know…" He glanced up again, as though Sherlock would finish his sentence. When no such opportunity arose, he breathed out and slumped, gesturing vaguely with a paw. "The…um, the feet. And the dance- the dancing."

There was a pause. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Again. The floor, the floor; look to the floor. Conversations never had to arise there.

"So, you're a pirate." The squirrel-boy was persistent; obviously determined to make conversation, his conversational tone never ceasing. He even leant forwards a little to enter his line of sight.

But pirates were a topic that he could talk about. Sitting up a little straighter, Sherlock nodded. "Yes. Captain Otter Cutlass. Of the Great Barrier Reef."

The boy looked interested. "You get pirates there?"

He nodded. "Oh, yes. They're just not very well known. There're all sorts of coral there. It's more precious than gold, of which the prices aren't very high at the moment, according to Mycroft's finance pap-"

"Is that near Scotland?" The boy seemed confident. A far greater conversationalist than himself, but that applied to most people.

The great captain thought this over for a moment. Answers required a lot of thought; of causes, of reactions, of untoward effects. "A bit further South," he concluded. He glanced over. He had been observing it for some time, and the thought continued to pester him unceasingly. "What's that costume you're wearing?"

The boy glanced down, and almost immediately colour rose to his cheeks; visible even in the ever-changing light. "Oh. Um. It's… er, um."

A squirrel, most likely. Or a rat, judging by the thickness of the tail; but that couldn't be anatomically correct, the proportions were all out of place-

"It's a hedgehog."

The change was immediate. His eyes widened, his eyebrows raised; he straightened up instantly, threw his head back, mouth a perfect circle. His arms raised midway in a gesture partway between celebration and self-inflicted anger. "_Oh!_"

He cracked his head on the wall behind him.

The recently-revealed hedgehog shot up immediately in panic, staring fixatedly in worry at the long-confirmed pirate. But he was already muttering constantly beneath his breath.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Hedgehog. I _knew_ it was a hedgehog. The colour was all wrong, and the tail-"

"Sherlock. Come on."

The familiar voice was strange in the midst of that party; in the newfound atmosphere which he could now define as _socialising_. But as Mycroft yanked him up by the arm, his suspicions budded and then blossomed without words.

It didn't need words. Mycroft's expression was as foreign as ever, but there were signs. The way his eyes darted about. It was like a book, so to speak.

"Sherlock, we need to go." He pulled him not-so-gently by the fabric of his shirt, but he resisted the gesture, twisting it free despite the ice-grip. He stood defiantly; examining the scratches, the footprints, every mark below his feet.

"I'm not going."

The boy appeared once again at his arm; ever keen. "Are you leaving?" His tone radiated disappointment.

"No." He replied before his brother could speak for him, half turning towards him in a state of knowing communication. A warning. "I'm not."

The other boy glanced away as a call echoed from somewhere across the dance floor – only the first syllable was audible, a lessening J. "That's my sister. I've got to go-"

"It's fine. I'll be here." The boy gave him a second glance as he turned to go, and there was something there. A message. A code; a code known to almost every boy and every girl his age; despite his intelligence, despite his skills, despite his _curse_, he couldn't understand it. He couldn't make out the language of childhood friendship.

But he could make out its tones. Its pitch. Its rhythm.

He watched the flimsy tail of the hedgehog as it weaved away from him between the attempted dancers. Once again, 4/4 time, though this time each footstep matched a beat. Almost a subconscious rhythm.

"Sherlock." He felt the hand on his shoulder, felt the undertone of haste in his voice. "We need to go."

He turned, ever so slightly, the hedgehog still in his vision. "I don't want to-"

_I want to stay. I want to talk to him, the hedgehog._

_I want to know his name._

"Sherlock;" And though there was not quite the note of desperation in his voice, there was some undetermined emotion beneath the surface; "He's _here._"

They didn't turn to the entrance. But they could feel the influx of cold night air as the door opened; the glow of yellow streetlight as a man entered.

It was that man.


End file.
